[Ppnews] Israeli prisons suppressing Palestinian political prisoners hunger strike

[Political Prisoner News]

Several articles follow

Qaraqe: Israeli prisons suppressing hunger strike

Published Saturday 10/04/2010 (updated) 11/04/2010 13:30
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=275386


Bethlehem – Ma'an – Minister of Prisoners' 
Affairs Issa Qaraqe said the Israeli Prison 
Service has applied punitive measures to 36 
Palestinian female prisoners in the Ad-Damun 
prison in response to a general hunger strike.

Qaraqe said the IPS has reduced the detainees' 
recess to one her per day, prohibited them from 
sending letters to their family, and further 
enforced restricted access to the cantina, where 
prisoners can buy stationary and other goods, 
because they have participated in a hunger strike which began on 7 April.

Moreover, the minister said the prison 
administration has transferred a number of 
prisoners from the Nafha prison to Ber Sheva 
prison in response to the hunger strike.

Detainees said they would escalate their protest 
if the IPS did not respond to their demands, 
which began in April against humiliating 
treatment of relatives visiting detainees and 
banning Gaza prisons from family visitation 
rights for over four years, coinciding with the 
capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian operatives in Gaza.

Prisoners across Israeli jails have boycotted 
family visits throughout April, and many have 
participated in the hunger strike. Further hunger 
strikes are expected to commence on 17 and 27 April.

******************************************
Addameer call for demonstrations on April 18th at 
ICRC offices! Demand that the ICRC take public 
action against Israel's treatment of Palestinian political prisoners!
http://www.addameer.org/addameer/campaigns/icrc.html

7500 Palestinians are currently being held as 
political prisoners by Israel, including around 
344 Palestinian children and 115 Palestinian 
women. These prisoners face forms of torture and 
mistreatment during their arrest and detention, 
and are consistently denied family and lawyer visits.

April 17th is the International Day in Solidarity 
with Palestinian Political Prisoners. It is 
marked by demonstrations through out the Occupied 
Territories with families demanding the release 
of prisoners. Many of these demonstrations take 
place outside the offices of the International 
Committee of the Red Cross, as this body is 
responsible for maintaining contact with 
prisoner! s, as well as delivering clothes and 
other essential items. This year in solidarity 
with Palestinian political prisoners and their 
families we call on all Palestine solidarity 
groups and prisoners solidarity groups to hold 
demonstrations and deliver a letter of protest to 
ICRC missions on April 18th (April 17th falls on a Sunday).

We are calling on the ICRC to take more 
meaningful steps in the monitoring of prisoner 
conditions. Despite the grave violations of 
prisoner rights that take place in Israeli 
prisons, the ICRC mission in the West Bank and 
Gaza Strip is not carrying out frequent visits to 
central Israeli prisons and has failed to deliver urgently needed supplies.

We call for demonstrations at ICRC offices to 
demand that the ICRC take public action and let 
the world know what is happening to Palestinian 
political prisoners inside Israeli jails and detention centers.

We call on all Palestine solidarity groups and 
prisoners support groups to endorse this day of 
action and sign onto a letter being delivering to 
the ICRC. To endorse or receive more information 
please contact http://sumoud.tao.ca


WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. As prisoner support organizations in Palestine 
are demonstrating outside local ICRC offices we 
must come together in the Palestine solidarity 
movement to support them and the prisoners. Join 
other groups all over the world on April 18 to 
organize a demonstration at an ICRC office in 
your area. Sumoud Political Prisoner Solidarity 
Group can provide you with resources (letter to 
ICRC, fact-sheets, event poster, press release, 
powerpoint presentation and video for 
educationals around the topic). Information available at http://sumoud.tao.ca

2. Sign an online petition being delivered to the 
ICRC on April 18 at http://www.petitiononline.com/sumoud/petition.html

3. Organize a Call-in / Fax Day to the ICRC on 
April 18. Below is a list of central ICRC 
delegation contacts and a sample letter that can 
be faxed / emailed and used for talking points when making phone calls.


CONTACT

UNITED STATES, Washington DC (covers U.S.A. and Canada)
Tel.: (+1) 202 293 94 30
Fax: (+1) 202 293 94 31
E-mail washington.was at icrc.org

GENEVA
Tel.: 41 22 730 2282
Fax: ++ 41 (22) 733 20 57
Email: anotari.gva at icrc.org

PALESTINE / ISRAEL
JERUSALEM
Tel.: (+972 2) 582 88 45 / 582 84 41
Fax: (+972 2) 581 13 75
jerusalem.jer at icrc.org

GAZA
Tel.: (+972) 57 756 860
Mobile: (+972) 59 60 30 15


SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Sir/Madam:
I address this letter to you on the occasion of 
Palestinian Prisoner Day, April 17, 2005. As the 
guardians of international humanitarian law, the 
ICRC is responsible "
to take cognizance of any 
complaints based on alleged breaches of that law" 
(Article 5.2c of the Statutes of International 
Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement). In the case 
of Palestinian prisoners however, this 
responsibility has quite clearly not been 
fulfilled. It appears to us that the ICRC has 
preferred to quietly accept Israel's considerable 
and increasing violations of the rights of 
Palestinian prisoners without taking any meaningful action.

It appears that the ICRC has quietly accepted 
Israeli restrictions on which prisoners they can 
visit. Furthermore, the ICRC visits take place in 
official 'visiting areas' and do not include any 
kind of monitoring of the prison and detention 
conditions inside the prison/detention centre as 
a whole (through, for example, walk-throughs of 
the general prison areas). I believe this would 
be a simple and effective way of placing pressure 
on the Israeli prison administrations to improve 
the conditions in these prisons.

In particular, I am concerned about cases such as 
Palestinian female prisoner Manal Naji Mahmoud 
Ghanim, 29 years old from Tulkarem, and her child 
Nour, 1 and a half years old, who have been 
imprisoned since 17 April 2003. Both Manal and 
Nour are being held in Telmond Prison. Manal, who 
suffers from Thalasemia, was arrested while she 
was pregnant. Taken away from her family in 
handcuffs, Manal delivered Nour in an Israeli 
hospital. The prison administration does not 
provide Manal and Nour with the special medical 
care they require, nor does it provide Nour with 
the milk he needs as his mother cannot breast-feed him.

While I understand that Israel places very real 
obstacles in front of the work of the ICRC, this 
situation must be urgently addressed. I therefore 
call on you to immediately take steps to fulfill the following measures:

*To take effective and public action to end the 
practice of Israel's incarceration of Palestinian 
prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 
areas outside of the occupied territories.

*To take effective and public action against 
Israel's widespread use of torture against Palestinian detainees.

*To immediately demand that sick and injured 
prisoners are provided with adequate and appropriate medical treatment.

*To urgently increase the frequency of visits by the ICRC to Israeli prisons.

*To insist that visits by ICRC staff to Israeli 
prisons also include the provision of urgently 
needed items such as clothes, underwear, shoes, 
sanitary products and educational materials.

*To pressure Israel to allow unobstructed family 
visits by Palestinians from the West Bank and 
Gaza Strip to their relatives in Israeli jails. 
Most importantly, these visits should take place 
unobstructed by glass or other barriers.

*To increase the visibility of the work of the 
ICRC to the Palestinian public, in particular the 
actions you carry out around the above measures. 
This should be done in much closer coordination 
with Palestinian human rights organizations.

While I understand fully the ICRC concerns over 
confidentiality in regards to your work, I would 
appreciate an official response to these 
concerns. I seek some indication that the ICRC is 
aware of these concerns and is taking steps to 
address them. If these complaints over the ICRC 
mission are inaccurate and unrepresentative of 
your activities then I would greatly appreciate further clarification.

Sincerely,


***************************************
PFLP: Support hunger striking prisoners in occupation jails

http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=pflp-support-hunger-striking-prisoners-occupation-

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 
expressed its support for Palestinian prisoners 
on hunger strike inside the occupation jails in 
the "battle of the empty stomachs" on April 7, 
2010. The prisoners' hunger strike demanded an 
end to occupation abuses of prisoners' rights and 
recognition of the political and legal rights of 
Palestinian prisoners as prisoners of war and 
freedom fighters imprisoned for their struggle for self-determination.

The PFLP said that this strike is a clear message 
from the masses of prisoners in the Zionist jails 
to all Palestinian, Arab and international 
institutions, including human rights 
organizations, the International Committee of the 
Red Cross and the United Nations to take action. 
The prisoners' action, the PFLP said, sheds light 
on the violations of the Geneva Conventions 
taking place in Israeli prisons as well as the 
ongoing denial of family visits and abuses of 
prisoners and their families, and brutal prison 
conditions. The Front noted that the occupier 
daily tramples prisoners' rights, meeting only 
silence from the "international community" and 
its alleged protectors of "democracy and human rights."

The Front's statement praised the prisoners' 
spirit of unity in this struggle, including 
prisoners from all political factions and 
parties, and called for our civil, popular and 
official organizations to mirror the prisoners' 
unity at Palestinian, Arab and international 
levels to uphold their rights and expose the 
truth of the racist, aggressive practices of the 
occupation and to struggle for and secure the 
national rights of our people - the right to 
return, to self-determination, to independence - 
and thwart the occupier's plans to suppress the 
Palestinian struggle and demoralize our people.

The PFLP affirmed the necessity of dedicating 
serious actions through  2010 to the freedom of 
the prisoners, through upgrading the role of the 
prisoners' movement in the political leadership 
of our people and ensuring a national agenda that 
focuses on achieving prisoners' freedom, 
protecting their rights and those of their 
families, and emphasizing their profound role in 
the struggle for national liberation.




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